The leader of a squad of US marines that killed 24 Iraqis in Haditha told two of his men before the assault they should kill everyone in the area if they were ever hit by a roadside bomb, a former squad member testified yesterday. Sgt Sanick Dela Cruz said he had the conversation with Staff Sgt Frank Wuterich and another marine while the men were smoking cigarettes during some down time at a dam in Haditha. A roadside bomb had gone off that day and injured several marines, Sgt Dela Cruz said.
Sgt Dela Cruz was testifying at a hearing to determine if Wuterich, 27, should stand trial on charges of murdering 17 Iraqis in what has become the biggest US criminal investigation to come out of the Iraq war. The case centres on whether Wuterich acted within marine rules of engagement when he shot the Iraqis and then led his squad in a string of house raids.
Wuterich asserts that he was following combat rules in place at the time, and that he attacked the houses because he thought gunfire was coming from them.
Sgt Dela Cruz told prosecutor Lt Col Sean Sullivan. “Staff Sergeant Wuterich made this comment that if we ever got hit again we should kill everybody in that vicinity, sir, to teach them a lesson.”
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About a week later, on Nov 19, 2005, another bomb did go off, killing a marine. In the aftermath of the blast, five men standing beside a white car were shot dead and other men, women and children were killed as the squad went on a house-to-house sweep, ostensibly looking for the bomb’s triggerman.
Four enlisted marines were charged with murder and four officers charged with dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the deaths. Charges have so far been dropped against three of the men.
Sgt Dela Cruz was charged with murder but prosecutors dropped the charges in return for his testimony.
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Leader of Haditha massacre escapes murder charge « Aftermath News // January 3, 2008 at 4:55 pm
[...] ‘Marine leader told us to kill everyone’ [...]
Ripmaster // June 29, 2008 at 6:52 am
Baby Killer US Marines Set Free to Kill Again!!
Internet Websites around the Globe have been diligent in covering the numerous War Crimes committed by the US Troops against the occupied populace of Iraq, including the November 19, 2005 Haditha Massacre of 24 Iraqi Civilians by US Marines. In that noble spirit, we need to broadly publicize and loudly spread the news that, little by little, the sneaky Americans have let 7 of the 8 US Marine perpetrators of the Massacre of Iraqi Civilians at Haditha go free without any punishment, hoping the rest of the World does not notice.
This past week, on June 17th, 2008, criminal charges against Marine Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessini were thrown out on a legal technicality, and now there is only one U.S. perpetrator of these War Crimes left to face trial, as all of the other killers and those who engaged in the Coverup have now been set free, (perhaps free to kill again.)
This latest outrage is just more example that shows that there has been virtually no serious accountability in either this or most of the numerous other criminal cases involving the murder of Iraqi civilians and Iraqi POWs in War Crimes committed by the US Marines, the US Army or by sub-contractor henchmen during the five years since the invasion and occupation began. In the Haditha case 24 Iraqi Civilians were deliberately executed in cold-blood by Marines as revenge for an IED roadside bomb attack that killed one US Marine, (Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas). The murdered Iraqi civilians, (whose bodies showed that they were shot at close range), included 7 children, including 3 year old Aisha Salim, shot dead while her mother futilely tried to shield her with her own body.
This atrocity at Haditha is just one in a long list of war crimes committed by US forces against the occupied Iraqi population, crimes that include the well-known torture chambers of Abu Ghraib; the gang-rape of 14 year old Iraqi teenager Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, by US soldiers who then shot her in the head, burned her body with kerosene and shot her parents and sister to cover up the crime; the murder of captured Iraqi Air Force Major General, Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who was unceremoniously beat and stuffed head-first into a sleeping bag, tied in the bag with electric cord and then sat on and smothered to death by US Interrogators who didn’t like his answers; the forcing at gunpoint by US Army personnel of 19 year old Zaidoun Hassoun, to jump to his death off of a Bridge into the Tigris river; and of course, the destruction of most of the City of Fallujah and killing of thousands of its inhabitants as revenge for the hanging from a bridge of the corpses of 4 members of the Blackwater mercenary force, (a private army that enjoys total legal immunity as it kills Iraqi civilians in much the same way as early US Western Settlers shot and killed Buffalo, (for sport, and often while drunk).
In a number of these cases the US government has paid “blood money” reparations to the victims relatives; however, there has been little if any actual punishment for the many individuals and military units who carried out the crimes, and none should be expected, as these “trials” appear to have been mostly just for show and public consumption, (except in the rape/murder/body-burning case where a few Army perpetrators received lengthy sentences).
It appears that Justice for most Iraqi victims of US War Crimes will never be found in American Courts, especially our Military Courts. Justice for Iraq will only be found in the eventual, and inevitable, military defeat and expulsion of the US occupation on the ground through a guerrilla war of attrition by the Iraqi Resistance, and by a War Crimes Tribunal along the lines of the Nuremberg Trials to hold the US government and it’s military accountable for crimes against humanity.
In summary, Justice in Iraq will not be found until the last US Marine is wetting his pants as he flees on a Helicopter out of Baghdad in a scene reminiscent of Saigon in 1975.
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